


Pipe Dream

by SandrC



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Sometimes things that are expensive...are worse, Spoilers for Unsleeping City Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 12:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21253670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: "What is it that you see when you look at what's beyond the Golden Door?"A dream deferred in six parts.





	Pipe Dream

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank Brennan for writing the story of Unsleeping City and also Siobhan, Murph, Zac, Emily, Ally, and Lou for making it into more than it was to begin with.
> 
> As always, a character study to get things up and running — never-you-mind the two Kugrash fics I did for the pain, shoosh...
> 
> I thought the descriptions of their ideal American Dream really gave us a lot about their characters and why they were who they were. I also thought about how they must view the American Dream that they wind up fighting — though Siobhan sneering and saying "oh god its the protestant work ethic" made me cry because I thought about Mormons — and that lead to this.
> 
> Wound up taking me a tad too long to write imho, but it's worth it.
> 
> Shoutout to Google Docs for making formatting a right bitch and also for yelling at me about "its". Motherfucker, if it is a character that is an it being possessive then there's no fucking apostrophe! Jesus.
> 
> Hope y'all are doing well and happy Halloween!

Rowan Berry—and every person she has been before—has _always_ coveted humanity's ability to choose. To _change_. To be mutable and rippling and malleable. To wake up one day and decide "_Hey!_ I'm going to sell my belongings and move to the countryside!" and then _follow through._

Faeries are so static, _immovable_. The Unseelie are dark, malicious, and sneering. The claws that catch and take and harm. The Seelie are light, inspiration, and whimsy. The light voices of birds, songs sung to children, and gifts on your mantle for your wellbeing. Titania—Queen of Seelie and Spring—is who she is, _no more, no less._ Oberon—King of Unseelie and Summer—is who he is, _no more, no less._ Robin Goodfellow, the satyrs, the pixies; there is not _one_ faerie who is not beholden to _who they are_, from their names to their actions, dictating their _every_ move.

_Not one_, save for the faerie that was once Misty Moore and later became Rowan Berry.

That's why she didn't get angry when Bobby admitted to putting the mirror in her home. Why she didn't bat an eye when Titania came for her when able. Why she didn't want the responsibility of being Queen of Seelie. Why she didn't want a Court.

Because it was _static_. It was the antithesis of what she saw in the American Dream: the freedom to choose and to change.

Nod once told Rowan, in the space while she was dreaming of the night and a spotlight of moonbeam and songs she has long since forgotten, that she was _everything_ Faerie had been _before_ it became a Borough. While it was still a Paragon. While it belonged to the Dreaming.

"Before they left me and became Faerie, they were _very much_ like _you_ are now. Shifting, changing, and mutable. All Paragons are. And _then_ they are _not_." Nod's smile was that of a child, fitting of their form, their eyes the only thing that betrayed their age. They nodded to Misty, who was draped over the waxing crescent moon like it is a chaise lounge. "You are _the_ most interesting faerie I have ever seen because you _chose_ to change."

Changing. Moving. _Becoming_. Everything that Rowan loved about mortals is what tied them to dreams, to Dreaming, and everything that faeries are bereft of. _Sure_, they can _dream_, but they are no longer able to enjoy _Dreaming_.

But she is _not_. She is evolving and metamorphosizing. She has become something _different_. Something _more_ than what she started as.

Not _just_ Misty Moore or Rowan Berry, but both and neither and everyone she would be and has been.

When the American Dream stepped forth, pressed neatly into a fine package of man and perfect and plain, she was _revolted_. Because she saw it shuck off and strip away every single one of its infinite skins, discarding them for the same rigid milquetoast bullshit that the Courts themselves embodied.

It had cast aside possibility for control and, in doing so, became _irreparably abhorrent_ to her.

* * *

Kugrash has, for as long as he has been _Kugrash_, hated who he was as Bruce Kugrich. Bruce was a shitlord, a fucking scrub, and the worst kind of scum. A homewrecker, a thief, a liar_, a monster_.

A _terrible_ fucking person. A _worthless_ human being.

Kugrash has, with _every_ breath he's taken, fought tooth and claw to _not_ become Bruce again. He has dug himself out of the grave Bruce was drowning in, his claws bleeding and his lungs filled with dirt and shit, and refused to stop. He would do _anything_ to keep from backsliding. It was what got him into this situation in the first place, his body matching his soul.

So he _rarely_ found any worth in Bruce or what he did.

But there was a memory—_just one!_—that Kugrash remembered in the moments when he wished to be warm and happy and content. He held it close to his chest for when the winters were rough and food was scarce; when he gave all but a _minimal_ amount to the homeless and vagrants. He recalled it when the rain got heavy and his joints ached. He pinned it to the space above his heart to look at when he was healing after a hard battle.

Sometime in the 80's, when his marriage wasn't a shambling nightmare of alcohol and resentment, he and his wife took the boys to a baseball game. Shit tickets up in the nosebleeds but Wally and David—no older than ten, both excited for _whatever_ mom and dad had planned—were gonna _love_ it. They piled into the car, snagged some cheap snacks when they fueled up, and didn't tell them what was going on.

The game was trash. They lost, _of course_, and about midway through it started raining so everyone was wearing garbage bags to stay dry, but _none of that mattered_.

Because, for all the flaws and setbacks and frustrating moments that day, it was a _family outing_ and Bruce found his thoughts occupied with nothing more than the moment. Wally and David getting franks done up with ketchup and onions. Cheap, warm beer. Yelling at the umpire when he fucks up a _simple goddamn call._ Four people, elbow-to-elbow in shitty, plastic chairs, laughing and ecstatic and joyous. Alive. _Together_.

He was _there_. He was there and _that was it._

As the American Dream solidified itself into human form—though the wings and power and alien blankness to its expression were decidedly _inhuman_—Kugrash _knew_. _That_ was what _he_ had been. What _Bruce_ had been.

What Moses _wanted_.

And it was _more_ filthy, more _disgusting_ than _anything_ Kugrash had ever done in his time as a rat. Because it was self-serving and introspectively obtuse and a fucking dumb piece of goddamn shit.

Not _just_ projection of self-hatred, but a realization that this Dream was a funhouse mirror and he had the means to stop it.

* * *

Ricky Matsui was born the son of a pair of immigrants. Every Thanksgiving was spent recounting their struggles, their move, their joy. It was a tale he knew forwards and backwards in two different languages.

It was a story he associated with _love_.

Two people who worked hard enough to make their way to a place that was lauded as a new start, as the place to make something of yourself. Two people who made a place for themselves somewhere their kids could thrive in a way they were unable to. Two people who watched their family live and love and grow. Two people who could rest knowing they made sure their house would be a home.

When he started his job as a firefighter, his goal was to protect _that dream_ for other people. He couldn't make that journey himself, but he _could_ keep the spaces people had carved out for themselves up and running, and decidedly _Not On Fire._

He was _rather_ good at that last part. He wanted to be _better_ at the first part. It was a work in progress.

Then there was the Gramercy Occult Society and the Questing Blade and Esther; magic and duty _beyond_ duty and someone he wanted to make a place with. Someone he wanted to _be_ with. Someone he wanted to _protect_ with a sharp longing that he had trouble settling in his chest, in the fluttering of his heart in his ribs, in shortness of breath and "_as you wish_".

And after that was Pete and Santa and Nod and Robert. Something _bigger_ than himself, than the _city_, than even his own duty and Quest. Something that threatened _every_ person who _could_ have what his parents had. Every dream squirreled away in every crevice of this city.

And this was both of his goals in one go. Saving _and_ protecting. Prevention _and_ extinguishing. And he was a hero. Or, rather, a Hero—according to Esther and Alejandro and the Gramercy Occult Society and the Questing Blade. Something about the Proper Noun made the distinction _important_.

During the short time between killing Robert Moses the _first_ time and moving to stop him from corrupting what his parents had fought so hard to find, Ricky sought out other Heroes and was given an ultimatum. An ace up his sleeve—_if_ he was wearing any. A final resort.

"_Only if things are dire_."

But the thing that steps out of the Golden Door at Robert's behest isn't _anything_ like a Dream. Or, if it _is_, it is the Dream of a sad and obsessed man who dreams of paper dolls and Monopoly money.

Marble and steel and gold. Stiff and unyielding. Captain America if he was a member of Hydra, only without the shield, or the personality.

Homogenous in comparison to the warm stories traded over an eventual food-coma and screaming laughter. Washed out when placed next to the soft prayers of "yes, _finally_, we can give them _everything_, because it is _here_ and _possible_." Worthless when weighed against kisses pressed against foreheads and secure futures they could shape to their capricious desires.

Things were dire but he could wait until they were _irreparably_ so. He was a _very patient person._

He could wait until he _couldn't_ any more.

But this Dream was something he would gladly see burn.

* * *

The day that Sofia Bicicleta became Sofia Lee, it was done with a stiff upper lip and a rigid spine. As she walked down the aisle, the train of her wedding dress cascading down and across the floor, framing her a goddess of mists and water, she didn't meet her dad's eyes. Or her brother's eyes either.

She didn't _need_ to.

She didn't need _them_. _Or_ their disapproval.

Sofia had _Dale_. Beautiful, _dorky_ Dale, who was _almost_ too ripped for his suit—which was both _hot_ and also _terrifying_ because he rented the damn thing and shit got _expensive_ when you fucked it up like that—and also weeping openly. _She_ had Dale and _he_ had her and that's _all_ that mattered. _That_ and their love for each other.

_Fuck_ her dad. _Fuck_ their derision. She was fucking getting goddamn _married_.

That day she felt like a goddamn _princess_ in her mermaid-style gown. Hair up in the most complicated 'do she'd attempted on herself in _years_. Makeup with price tags to _cry_ about. Shoes with heels long and thin enough to use as chopsticks. _The whole nine yards._ A royal steal.

And there, wearing the thickest glasses _anyone_ under fifty had ever put on their damn face, was her prince. Her blubbering, splotchy prince.

_She'd never been happier_.

When they said their vows, when the officiant called for anyone who might object or dissent, Sofie cast a sharp glare out to her family, _daring_ any of them to speak up. Promising _whoever_ did a quick introduction to the reason she never had a Saturday _not_ in detention.

No one objected, though Mario looked like he was in a boiling pot of water, red as shellfish and twice as pinched.

And they exchanged rings and kisses and the deed was done.

It was a moment of pure, _unadulterated_ love.

It was _everything_ Sofie'd ever dreamed of.

It was her everything for _five happy years_.

And it wasn't _just_ the marriage to Dale—though, when Rowan and Esther and Em saw a picture of him, they'd congratulated her on her catch, which was flattering to say the least—but the knowledge that _no one_ could tell her who she _could_ and _couldn't_ love. That love was _free_ here. Free to be _had_. Free to be _given_. Free to be _whatever_ you made of it.

And she loved with _all_ of her even after it all. From the casual intimacy of brushing Kugrash's fur and hip-checking Rowan when she passed her in a narrow hallway, to the familial ribbing between her and Kingston about food or the sibling-like physical tiffs she would engage with Pete in, to even taking pictures of Ricky to send to people he was texting, everything she did was because she loved them all.

Even if it wasn't the same as the love she had for Dale, _who the fuck_ was gonna tell Sofia Lee, Chosen of the Order of the Concrete Fist, she was _wrong_? Or _broken_? Or _stupid_?

_Robert Moses_, apparently, but _that_ motherfucker was gonna get his goddamn teeth beaten in _soon enough_.

The _thing_, the so-called _Dream_ that emerged from the Golden Door inside of Robert Moses's phylactery, was _devoid_ of love. It looked but did not _see_. It talked but did not _speak_. It heard but did not _listen_.

Sofia was reminded of a papier-mâché mask she made in elementary school using a balloon as the base. A rigid imitation of a person, with the insides scooped out. _All_ the good things they made someone _someone_, gone. Leaving behind just a person-shaped husk.

This thing that wore the skin of a person and the suit of a person and spoke with the voice of a person, called _her city_, her _home_, filthy. There was no love in its voice for the strange and unusual or the unwanted and eclectic. There was just _disgust_.

And this loveless Dream had the _gall_ to fucking set foot in _**her** goddamn city_? The city _she_ Chose to protect?

With a stiff upper lip and a rigid spine, Sofie Lee was gonna fucking remind this Dream why no one spoke against her at her wedding.

Coz she had a mean right hook and was _spiteful_ to boot.

* * *

Pete was not always _Pete_. That didn't matter _now_, in a city that _only_ knew him as Pete, but once upon a time, he had been someone different.

_Fuck_ that person, though. They were unhappy and angry and depressed and _also_ had a _terrible_ drinking problem and an addictive personality and an unchecked and undiagnosed attention disorder among other things.

_His_ name was Pete and _he_ was a fucking mess but he was a mess _he_ had built from the ground, up.

(Imagine, for a moment, that there was some pithy wisdom about "store bought hormones" or "DIY brain soup" or something like that. _Got it?_ Cool. That's _def_ something Pete would say if he had two brain cells to spare at the moment. But he _doesn't_. He's _occupied_ right now, not that anyone asked.)

While being turned down again and again and again for something as simple as removing a secondary sex characteristic sucked more dick than an enthusiastic fellatio aficionado, he didn't stop. _Mostly_ because he was a stubborn son of a bitch who had broken _horses_ more expensive than the United States Medical System. _Partially_ because he'd fallen on some old habits with some new friends, and _something_ about tripping balls made it easier to participate in exercises of futility.

It hadn't mattered in the end. Hundreds of dollars in binders and packers and medical consultations only to be told "_well_, miss, we can't, in _good faith_, authorise such a _risky_ operation without _due cause_"—which was insurance jargon for "we're being transphobic pieces of trash and are _allowed to by law_"—and turned away. So Pete found _other_ means.

Not that he was on the straight and narrow anyway. Just a hop skip and a jump to the side of his version of "_legal_" and "_moral_".

53\/3N knew a guy who dealt to mafia-types—"not mob, _mafia_, because the distinction is _incredibly_ important when considering your clientele, Pete"—who had a doctor close to where Pete tended to chill, so he pulled a string or two and got Pete a walk-in with this big Slavic doc.

When Dr. Lugash greeted him as "_Peter_" in his thick Russian accent and didn't bother asking for more than pre-existing medical conditions, Pete was _relieved_. When he looked at the half-assed scribbled paperwork with a scratched out "sex" area Pete filled out and said nothing, Pete was _hopeful_. When he agreed to do his surgery after a bit of time making sure his hormone levels were stable and he was regularly taking the proper dose of SSRIs and Amphetamines for his weight, Pete almost _cried_.

(He did not _actually_ cry, though there isn't anything _wrong_ with crying. Pete is just much more reserved than other people and would _very much_ like it if _no one_ _ever_ saw him cry. _Ever_. The end.)

There was nothing in this world more beautiful than _being Pete_. Than going shirtless coz he fucking paid for the lack of public indecency charges for doing so. Than feeling at home in his own skin.

And then the Vox Phantasma shit started.

_Suddenly_ his skin didn't matter because everything was mutable and changing. Fucking dreams were his wheelhouse and magic was real, so _why bother_ getting hung up on fucking medical bullshit! There had to be _some_ kind of magic-based shit for this kinda nonsense.

But also there were five people who looked at him and called him _Pete_. Even if they didn't _always_ get him or know what his goddamn deal was, they had his back. Or, _rather_, they had his back and _also_ a contingency plan, but it's _fine_. _Really_. Shit was probably _hella_ out of context anyways and fuck Robert Moses. Preferably with a white hot poker in his taint. _Asshole_.

So he'd carved a space out for himself and settled in like poorly made jello shots. Found a pattern to being the Vox Phantasma. Learned more about magic and the people that used it to survive and the realm of Dreaming that he was protector and voice of. Became more _Pete_ than he ever had been.

When New Year's came, and, with it the climax to their Grand Quest—or some _other_ equally high fantasy bullshit words to justify why the _**actual** human **fuck**_ they were fighting a _lich_ in a _stock exchange_ surrounded by _vampires_—Pete was _strangely_ at peace with it all. _Sure_, he didn't want to _die_, but he was the best version of himself at the moment. He had managed to make something of himself that wasn't what his parents wanted or what was expected of him.

He was _Pete_. _Just_ Pete, no last name. And while he sold drugs, he was _gonna stop_, coz fuck _that_ shit. He'd ruined enough lives for one lifetime. He was seven days sober, trying to be better, and he had friends who gave an _actual_ shit about him.

So the thing that called itself the American Dream, that pale imitation of a Paragon that was under _his_ fucking jurisdiction as Vox Phantasma, was here and _he_ _hated it_ with _every_ fibre of his being and _every_ dream deferred.

When he looked at it, even though the _surface_ of the Dream was this cut dude dressed like a Stepford husband, he could see _everything else_ behind it. From the shine of the gun that 53\/3N kept in his bunker, buried under piles of Soylent and IV drips, to the blood of the pale girl who was selling herself to the vampires just to make a dent in her college debt, to even the glint of Epona's corrupted police badge. It was that fake person, sure, but it was _also_ every person who stepped on others to get ahead. It was the nuclear family, the "_why don't you have kids_", the predatory loan offers, the credit card commercials at one in the morning, the sneaky landlords, the smiling military recruiters in high schools with low incomes.

It was his dad, calling for someone who didn't exist anymore.

With the Golden Door shining behind it, the Dream, wearing that fake American Ideal, looked on them and saw nothing. And with the power vested in him by the _fucking_ Dreaming itself, Pete was gonna make sure the damn thing went _the fuck_ _**back** to sleep._

* * *

Kingston Brown was a man who had given his _everything_ for _anyone_ who asked. Liz wasn't wrong when she said he was something for everyone; even before he'd been chosen as Vox Populi, Kingston gave more than he got, never asking for more.

When he was younger, more wide-eyed but no less set in his power as the voice of the people, there was a woman. Her child had been wheeled in with second and third degree burns covering every available inch of their skin, clothes melted in some places and ash in others, hair gone in patches that spoke of a narrow escape. She hadn't left in the six hours that they'd been in and out of the ICU.

She hadn't eaten, drank water, used the bathroom, or moved in six hours. Just sat there and watched the door. Waited. Hands shaking and wide eyes trained on the door leading deeper in.

Kingston felt the _pull_ to her. The same pull that he had to anyone in need, but he felt more attached to her cause, whether it was the raw terror and desperation in her face or the fact that she, too, was burned and smelled heavily of smoke. _Either way_, he turned on his heels, snuck into the ICU, found her child holding on to life as best they could, and asked New York for help.

"_Please_," he'd asked, _just shy_ of begging, hands hovering over large swaths of bandages soaked in blood and other fluids, "it doesn't have to be enough to make it a _miracle_, but _just enough_ that they'll _survive_. Not just for their future, but for their mother."

And New York, like it _always_ did, _answered_.

He had the pleasure of telling the exhausted mother her child would be fine; handing her a coffee and a bagel with a soft smile. The woman wept openly, leaning on Kingston's shoulder, and thanked him and her god and _everyone_ who had a hand in her child's recovery.

While she ate, Kingston marveled at the warmth that settled in his chest. Something about helping people _always_ felt good, _always_ felt _similar_ to this, but there was something _more_ there with that woman and her child that he couldn't identify until he was much older and had nieces and nephews.

Family was _important_, _blood_ or _otherwise_. You gave up for family but it wasn't out of duty or resentment or loss, but a desire to allow them to grow and _prosper_.

Kingston strived to do those things for the people he loved and, while not always successful, he did _his best_.

But Robert Moses threatened _everything_ about that. From a _literal_ threat against his kin—children and _the elderly_, no less—to coming after someone he loved once—and _still_ loved, if he was being honest. He raised a hand against the Vox Populi and his protected. For all that Kingston gave, he wanted _so very badly_ to _take_ this man, this _thing_, out of the picture.

Even killing Robert wasn't enough, however, and the confrontation inside the lich's phylactery was just _one more_ reason to hate him—and Kingston Brown was _not_ a man who hated easily.

The so-called Dream that appeared inside that space was _so_ fake it was _laughable_. From it's blank, emotionless face to its rich CEO haircut, to its too-shiny penny loafers, it was plastic all the way down. And _the worst type_ of fake too—it was _performative_.

It was the parents who came into the NICU with masks of caring as they calculated if having a premature or deformed child was _worth it_. It was the promises of "_next time_" from co-workers who knew _damn_ well they weren't going to even _entertain_ the idea of attending a get-together. It was a car someone could barely afford save for living in a shithole and maxing out their cards.

It filled Kingston with pity and rage in equal amounts.

How _dare_ Robert try and make something as _selfless_ as the American Dream into something as _selfish_ as this Ken-doll looking motherfucker? How did this Dream feel, if it _could_, about wearing the same skin as every facist before it? How could _anyone_ look at the sheer scope of New York—_let alone_ _America_ as a _whole_—and decide to take _every bit_ of that aggressive hope away for their own _stupid_ fucking wants?

Robert wants the Vox Populi to be _selfish_? To _protect_ what's _his_? _Fine_.

Put up your dukes, Bobby boy, coz Kingston Brown _isn't_ a pacifist, he just _dresses_ like one. And he _will_ knock some damn sense into this Dream if it kills him—which it _very well might_, but he's lived a long life and the world will turn on without him.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Pipe Dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27509416) by [ofjustimagine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofjustimagine/pseuds/ofjustimagine)


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